Digital disruption - Harnessing the ‘bang’

Telstra, AustralianSuper, The Search Party, UBank, Westfield

Discover how Telstra, UBank, Westfield and AustralianSuper have differentiated through customer, culture and clever investment in the dynamic digital world and are now seeing their investments in people, design and digital deliver.

Telstra

The 24/7 Telstra app and crowdsupport platform have revolutionised how Telstra relates to its customers

At the forefront of societal and economic change, telecommunications and media companies sit squarely in the ‘Short fuse, Big bang’ quadrant of Deloitte’s Digital Disruption Map.

In 2010, the company knew it had to extend its origins as a conservative engineering culture to a fast-paced digital one. Telstra Digital was formed.

Sourcing some of the best digital talent in the market, its critical mass now comprises one of the biggest and best digital teams in the country.

Its move to a one platform and unified approach to information architecture was game-changing.

Successes include the Telstra 24x7 smartphone and tablet apps which deliver customer control to its 1.5 million regular users in the palm of their hands. Its CrowdSupport community is another channel through which Telstra has revolutionised the way it relates to, and services its customers.

Other case studies

AustralianSuper

AustralianSuper increased transactions from 20,000 to 300,000 (1500%) in 18 months, by shaping and continuously personalising its digital offering

As part of the superannuation industry, AustralianSuper is within the ‘Short fuse, big bang’ quadrant of Deloitte’s digital disruption map. In 2010, customer demand for a personalised experience prompted the top ten fund to act. The organisation realised that creating a memorable and simplified digital experience for customers, dovetailed with an opportunity to be more efficient and environmentally friendly by transitioning to a paper-less business.

These imperatives crystallised AustralianSuper’s view that the vanilla service offered by its previous model would no longer suffice a membership base that was set to increase (it reached two million in 2013). As Australians rapidly increase their interest in their superannuation, the national retirement savings pool has surpassed $1.6 trillion in assets, taking Australia to the world’s third largest superannuation asset pool.

The business case for AustralianSuper was predicated on moving to digital from paper-based services. However education and stakeholder buy-in would prove keys to success.

Through co-creation, storytelling, personalisation, and expertise AustralianSuper was able to shift its transactions from 20,000 p.a. to 300,000 p.a. in 18 months. Member engagement increased by 25%, expertise and skills were acquired, and individual personalisation and mobile delivery map out the business transformation ahead to meet the future head on.

The Search Party

A disruptor - challenging the traditional recruitment process, reducing the average time to hire a candidate to just 12 days, compared with the 81 day industry average

When founded in 2011 the Search Party wanted to develop technology that would increase productivity and efficiency in the recruitment business. By Q2/ 2014 it offers more than seven million verified candidates, to 200 signed-up employers and recruitment agencies, in two countries.

Australian start-ups are successfully disrupting business models within our behemoths and out in the marketplace. Defining itself as a ‘positive disruptor’, the Search Party uses big data algorithms and a smart negotiation/settlement platform to bring value to businesses, candidates and the recruitment industry.

It has slashed the time it takes to hire to 12 days from an 81 day average, taken up to 9% off the cost to hire, and broadened Australia’s and the UK’s access to talent.

Although the banking sector as a whole was seen to be slow to respond to the digital revolution it has accelerated exponentially in the last two years. As a first mover in 2006 seeking new ways to engage with digitally-savvy customers, NAB chose to create a separate division to embark on a steep, innovation journey. The bank gave its new division the freedom and agility to explore, experiment and create a responsive, technology-driven service – fast.

Now Australia’s fastest growing bank, the online, customer/you-focused UBank, sees itself as a digital business that provides homes, cars, holidays, savings, security and peace of mind.

The Westfield Group harnessed the bang with the realisation that their hugely successful model of building large, quality, long-lasting shopping malls across the world, was being challenged by a profound change in shopper behaviour - driven by technology enabled connectivity. It became apparent that this could be a disruption with a big bang, or a transformative opportunity to connect the digital shopper with shopping centres that improved the shopping experience.

By 2012 Westfield Labs was set up to leverage the retail ecosystem with innovative social, mobile and digital market opportunities that converge the digital shopper with the physical world.

Westfield’s learnings include getting curious around technology, seeing scenarios in the shoppers’ journeys, and supporting them with a broad range of new digitally enabled innovations. Now digital storefronts, digital in-centre signage, click and collect hubs, Wi-Fi networks, frictionless car parking payment services, mobile food service apps and the searchable mall web platform all integrate retailers and help shoppers find what they want in their local Westfield shopping centre.

In Digital disruption - Short fuse, big bang? Deloitte identified 13 industries comprising 65% of the Australian economy that are facing significant disruption by 2017. In this follow up, Harnessing the bang – Stories from the digital frontline 2014, digital disruption in these industries has accelerated. Learn what four leading Australian organisations -Telstra, NAB, Westfield and AustralianSuper – are doing about it. They share their successes and key learnings. Deloitte sees the themes and suggests questions to ask and a framework to discover the current digital building blocks.

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